'PM should not accept changes in N-deal'

Asserting that US is deviating from the original parameters of the Indo-US nuclear deal, the CPI-M on Sunday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should ensure that the country should not accept any new conditions or changes to the deal that could harm national interests.

"We have a lot of doubts about the Indo-US nuke deal and concerns about changes being made by US in it. We demand from the Prime Minister that India should not accept any changes in this deal which could be detrimental to the national interests or nuclear sovereignty," CPI-M polit buro member Sitaram Yechury told reporters in Ludhiana.

Yechury said the US had now imposed a fresh condition that India could not re-use or reprocess the thorium extracted from uranium.

"The condition that India will not have the right to reprocess thorium as a fuel for our scientific purposes is clearly a deviation made by the US in the deal. If India accepts it, then we would wholly depend upon the US and work as per the terms laid down by the US," he said.

The Prime Minister should have the 'sense of the House' on any change in the parameters of the deal, he asserted.

Yechury urged the Centre to immediately stop the purchase of weapons from Israel. "The buying of military equipment from Israel amounts to support for the killing of innocent people in Lebanon as a result of the war launched by Israel," he said.

He also demanded a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against RIL and Bhim Singh, both of whom were named as beneficiaries of the Iraqi oil-for-food scam by the Volcker Commission.